The totalitarian tendency that seeks to exclude people of different worldviews from the public square. Morally permissive people are particularly totalitolerant of religious conservatives.
L'affaire Buttiglione
‘Totalitolerance’ is a phrase coined by Nick Spencer of the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity. He was writing an article about the “excommunication” of Rocco Buttiglione - the 2004 Italian nominee for EU Justice Commissioner.
A leading advocate of that “excommunication” was Times columnist Matthew Parris. Mr Parris urged the European Parliament to “sweep out religious superstition which will not tolerate me”. Mr Parris is a gay man and Mr Buttiglione, an orthodox Catholic, believes that the practice of homosexuality is a sin. Mr Buttiglione told the European Parliament that this private belief would not prevent him from fully protecting gay people if he became Justice Commissioner. He told MEPs:
“I may think that homosexuality is a sin but this has no effect on politics, unless I say that homosexuality is a crime… The state has no right to stick its nose into these things and nobody can be discriminated against on the basis of sexual orientation... this stands in the Charter of Human Rights, this stands in the Constitution and I have pledged to defend this constitution.”
Enough of tolerance!?
Forgetting for the moment that the Constitution hadn’t passed, Mr Buttiglione’s assurances weren’t enough for the majority of MEPs. They were egged on by Mr Parris. He bloviated:
”I say: enough of tolerance. I do not tolerate religious superstition, not when it refuses to tolerate me. Sweep it from the corridors of power. I do not pay my taxes for a Europe which can “tolerate” a hardline Italian mate of Silvio Berlusconi and the Pope who takes to his job as Justice Commissioner the belief that tens of millions of Europeans such as me are sinners because we are gay, or that single mothers are “not very good” — or who adds that women should spend less time working and more time having babies.”
Mr Spencer was very concerned at this latest example of secular fundamentalism:
“Buttiglione’s hounding from office brings to light one of the most distasteful and worrying trends of our time. It shows how moral conservatives are increasingly debarred from office, even when they agree to leave their convictions at the door. And it demonstrates how, in bowing their knee at the altar of ‘tolerance’, elements of the liberal left are prepared to adopt aggressively intolerant measures, to turn their own tolerance into a kind of dictatorial ‘totalitolerance’. Most worryingly, it marks the eclipse of the liberal vision that has been the guiding light of progressive politics since the days of John Stuart Mill. Buttiglione’s insistence that the personal and political can coexist while being at odds is the cornerstone of liberal democracy. The alternative is for the thought-police to patrol our personal opinions, to ensure they conform to the political norms of the day.”
What next for religious conservatives?
Religious conservatives fear that their views are the only views that tomorrow’s otherwise permissive EU won’t tolerate. Today a conservative view on homosexuality is beyond the pale in Brussels. Will it be acceptable for a Christian to say that ‘Jesus is the only way to salvation’ in a few years? Or will the Home Office decide that that’s religious hatred?
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